Our new 1955 Special

[Buicknutty]

1 hour ago, avgwarhawk said:

The valve cover gasket set from CARS has the rubber seals for the studs. 

That's interesting, as I checked the Felpro set I have and I didn't see them.

I appreciate the tip.

Keith

[avgwarhawk]

8 minutes ago, Buicknutty said:

That's interesting, as I checked the Felpro set I have and I didn't see them.

I appreciate the tip.

Keith

 

 

 http://www.oldbuickparts.com/product_info.php?products_id=439

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by avgwarhawk (see edit history)

[old-tank]

On 11/12/2021 at 8:18 AM, avgwarhawk said:

My 54 264 has the small indents on the valve cover where the stud protrudes.

All  of my 55's have the indents, none ever had seals.

Clean and kit that WCFB, but you will need more than 350 feet to test it.   It will come on strong at 3500 rpm at WOT.  Just be sure it is hot with the choke fully open and the linkage adjusted so that the secondaries are not locked out.

[avgwarhawk]

8 hours ago, old-tank said:

All  of my 55's have the indents, none ever had seals.

 

 

Wondered myself. It's not like a oil slinging gallery under the valve cover. I have run the engine without the covers on. Oil never went flying.  The seals probably not necessary truth be told. 

[Buicknutty]

 For whatever reason there is oil leakage from the stud, fortunately I found something nearly the same as the ones CARS sells here. The thing is these days the cross border shipping by whatever means has got really expensive. The ones CARS sells for about $4. ea Can, so $16. for the set are nearly $30 to get them here.

 I cannot find a cheaper way.

 So the next time I need to order something from CARS I'll add them to the list.

I thank everyone for their input.

[EmTee]

Maybe check the hardware store for some appropriately sized faucet washers?

[Buicknutty]

I think that is what I found earlier today, and I'll try it out likely tomorrow.

 

We got the carb back together and on the engine, but the rest isn't hooked up yet. So, I am hoping, thinking, it will run and drive much better now. I found maybe 5-6 things wrong. It was very dirty, but the floats were set wrong, it was missing the accelerator pump spring, also the small spring which goes under the metering rod piston was MIA. The the metering rods were set wrong too.

 So I hope I've found all the things which a previous person did wrong, and that I have it correct, or at least close.

 Keith

[old-tank]

1 hour ago, Buicknutty said:

I think that is what I found earlier today, and I'll try it out likely tomorrow.

 

We got the carb back together and on the engine, but the rest isn't hooked up yet. So, I am hoping, thinking, it will run and drive much better now. I found maybe 5-6 things wrong. It was very dirty, but the floats were set wrong, it was missing the accelerator pump spring, also the small spring which goes under the metering rod piston was MIA. The the metering rods were set wrong too.

 So I hope I've found all the things which a previous person did wrong, and that I have it correct, or at least close.

 Keith

Jets are probably mixed also.🤔😞

[Buicknutty]

On 11/15/2021 at 12:17 AM, old-tank said:

Jets are probably mixed also.🤔😞

Well I guess you should have been with me at the bench, as I didn't check them!

 

However we did get it together last night and got it set up and the idle quality is definitely better and the drivability is better too. It still bogs off of the line, not nearly as bad though and once the revs get up a bit it really pulls way better, you can feel the acceleration now.

 With a bit more investigation it looks like the vacuum advance isn't working right, but the one off of the parts engine seems to be good, so we swapped that out tonight, and will test drive it tomorrow.

 

[old-tank]

19 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

It still bogs off of the line,

Stumbles or just grunts without doing much?

[Buicknutty]

It stumbles a bit right off of idle and when the revs get up a bit it takes off very well. If one tips in quite gently then mats the pedal if works, but if you hit it right away it nearly dies.

Keith

[usnavystgc]

Mine is doing the exact same thing.  let me know what you figure out.

[old-tank]

18 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

but if you hit it right away it nearly dies.

Sounds like the accelerator pump not working or delayed spray.

18 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

It stumbles a bit right off of idle

Common problem with some carburetors.  This is where the carb is transitioning from the jets below the throttle plate (controlled by the idle mixture screws) to those above.  If the idle mixture screws are too rich then it will stumble when transitioning to the leaner jets above.  Set the idle mixture screws as lean as possible while maintaining a decent idle.

 

Both problems are aggravated by E10 fuel.

[Buicknutty]

39 minutes ago, old-tank said:

Sounds like the accelerator pump not working or delayed spray.

Common problem with some carburetors.  This is where the carb is transitioning from the jets below the throttle plate (controlled by the idle mixture screws) to those above.  If the idle mixture screws are too rich then it will stumble when transitioning to the leaner jets above.  Set the idle mixture screws as lean as possible while maintaining a decent idle.

 

Both problems are aggravated by E10 fuel.

Thanks, I'll reset them again leaner and see how it goes.

It is getting more more difficult to avoid gas with some ethanol in it these days.

Keith

Edited November 18, 2021 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[KAD36]

“This is where the carb is transitioning from the jets below the throttle plate (controlled by the idle mixture screws) to those above.  If the idle mixture screws are too rich then it will stumble when transitioning to the leaner jets above.  Set the idle mixture screws as lean as possible while maintaining a decent idle.”

 

+1-^ Lean it out to reduce the off idle stumble. Helped correct similar situation a number of years ago. Sometimes adjusting just the width of the screw slot…..

 

https://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Troubleshooting.htm#Bog

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by KAD36 (see edit history)

[Buicknutty]

Thanks for the info guys!

So we've spent an hour plus tinkering with it, and have followed this train of thought, the result, though much better, though still not ideal.

The other issue here, and I think it's mentioned way back in the thread, I hope, is that #3 cylinder is dead and a leakdown test indicates it is coming through the bottom end, so a bad piston. So no matter what it's not going to be perfect. Since it does run we decided to try to get the body issues sorted to get it licensed and put a few local miles on it then get into the engine.

 In part because my son is of course keen to get to driving condition.

 

[Buicknutty]

 As I alluded to in the previous post, we have got back into trying to get the bodywork done, the reconstruction part at least. A final paint job will have to wait for a while yet.

 Part of the deal here is I'm wanting to do some work on my wife's '68 Wildcat during the worst part of the winter, to get it moving forward once again, then my son can do some of the easier things he is able to do on the '55, while I can concentrate on the '68.

 This will be a post I'll make in a few more days, as I'm going to move the '68 from the one building to the main workshop where I have the lift. So, my '56 Roadmaster (the car the family calls "Old Faithful") to the spot the '68 usually occupies near the '16, so it will be an easier task to swap places with the '68 and '55, so I can the '68 on the lift when needed.

 

 This is what we are tackling now, some rust out in the right rear back corner of the trunk. This would seem to be a result from sitting outside for a long time in it's past and water leaked in and did it's usual. Also the usual poor repair to remove and try to set right.

 This is the worst side, the left is much better, more like patching than reconstructing like the right is.

 The support which runs under the floor is quite bad so that requires fabricating, as well as the floor and lower part of the inner fender.

 Here are a few pictures.

[Buicknutty]

 So as we are continuing with the body work I'm thinking about other aspects of the car, one of them being the muffler. A previous person has grafted the wrong muffler onto it, it is too small.

 There is a gent not too far away here in Ontario who makes muffler's for vintage cars and farm equipment, but I don't know what the dimensions are. I'm sure they are similar to the duals the '56 has, but the pipes seem to be bigger, larger diameter on the single the '55 has

No documentation I have shows this info, or at least I can't find it.

So could someone out there measure up a muffler for a '55 Special with the 264 and a single exhaust and give me that info?

We would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you!

Keith

Edited January 2, 2022 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[Buicknutty]

 We are working on the left side at the very rear of the trunk, and we cut this piece out. This is a stiffener near the very back which is attached to the body right above the frame. The floor section is good, other than my slight miscut, so we will remove that from the rotten lower section and I'll weld it back in.

 

[old-tank]

You're only choice to consider

[Buicknutty]

 Well work is progressing slowly on the car, but we got all of the reconstruction done in the back, and now it's cleaned and painted. I used the Bill Hirsch paint, as I went over areas where there was still some surface rust to seal it all up.

 This is not a full restoration, but we are trying to get it safe, legal reliable and stabilize remaining rust with coatings, then oil spray when we're done.

 

[Rusty Heaps]

Making it safe, reliable, and legal is good. Sometimes people forget that all we are really doing with these old cars is kicking the can a little bit farther down the road. If you redo it and extend the serviceable life of the car 20 years, then you have done better than the factory intended originally. Hopefully the car will still be around to kick it 20 more years down the road. Nice progress by the way!

[Buicknutty]

13 hours ago, Rusty Heaps said:

Making it safe, reliable, and legal is good. Sometimes people forget that all we are really doing with these old cars is kicking the can a little bit farther down the road. If you redo it and extend the serviceable life of the car 20 years, then you have done better than the factory intended originally. Hopefully the car will still be around to kick it 20 more years down the road. Nice progress by the way!

Thank you very much!

With this car, or any sedan of this type there's no money in it, not that we do this for the money, but to pour a ton of dollars into this car you'll get yourself so upside down so quickly on the final value it's nuts.

 Plus my son, being a young man wants to drive the car sooner rather than later.

Keith

[Buicknutty]

 Though I'm not too much of a poster, we have been making progress on this. I'd managed to get the correct muffler for it, and then with a bunch of mucking around we got it in, the tailpipe on and all the hangers in place. Now she is so much quieter, no leaks and it sounds like a Buick now!

 Lots of little things as well, and one of the mods a previous owner had done was to put a manual choke on it. It works, but the thing which wasn't hooked up was the fast idle, so cold running was problematic.

 So I bought an electric choke conversion for it. This is a mod I've thought about doing on my '56 as it's choke hasn't worked quite right, like for ever. In the case of the '55 we are trying to return it to good stock running order.

 As part of doing this mod the person drilled out the hole which is on the choke shaft. This relies on a lug on the lever which goes to the fast idle cam to hold it in place. The only thing I could think of was to fill it with braze rod, then drill for the 1/8 in shaft then carefully work the key way into it.

I wasn't at all sure this was going to work out, but it did!!!

 Now it all works properly! The choke closes, fast idle works, choke opens when it should, and so on.

The march continues to get it ready for an Ontario safety certificate in a while, one by one we are crossing things off of the list.

Here are a couple of pictures of the choke parts. Not the prettiest I suppose but it works well!

Keith

 

[usnavystgc]

Looks beautiful. 

[Buicknutty]

 As the work is slowly progressing on the '55 we decided to finish the painting on the sides, so it at least will look a wee bit better going down the road.

We are just doing the section below the beltline and are keeping it black. We had all of the door panels off, except for the driver's door so we took off the side trim on the doors which are easily done.

 Graham wasn't a fan of taking the driver's door card off, so I'm keeping the peace and leaving it on and are just masking off the moulding. Likely this won't be the final finish, he is still debating that, but the rest of the car is nearly ready to go for the mandatory safety inspection so we can license it.

 When we got the fasteners off of both rear doors is when it got interesting. The left door has two less fasteners than the right door. They both have small screws on each end, which on the front edge was a devil of a time to get off, but it got done.

 Since we haven't taken the front moulding off the left door we don't know if has the same number.

 Here are pictures of the left and right rear doors. Has anyone seen this before? There is no indication the car was ever hit, unless the damage was confined to the one door and it only was replaced?

Keith

 

 

[Buicknutty]

Just a quick update on the '55. I finished the paint on the lower part of the body a couple of weeks ago and we have been doing a bunch of little things on it, including getting some of the side trim back on. Here's a shot of the left side which looks much better now!

 Getting a set of correct steel rims for it was more difficult than I expected. I thought I had a full set, but a couple turned out to be bad so a couple of friends came the the rescue, only I had to drive several hours each way to get them!

 Now they have been sandblasted and painted and await tires, which hopefully we will get next week.

 After a bit more tuning it is running much better and actually feels a lot more driveable now the limited space we have to test drive.

Keith

[usnavystgc]

The rims are getting harder and harder to find.  When I first went to get my Buick from PA, the number one thing that held me up was rims.  I eventually had to have someone weld the ones that were on it just to get it tow a rolling/towable state.

[Rusty Heaps]

What wheels are you using in the photo? I have similar on the ‘52 basket case Special I’m working on but they won’t work without spacers because the front hubs are too big to fit into the center of the wheel. I would like to use the style and think it’s a good look for the car. 

[Buicknutty]

2 hours ago, Rusty Heaps said:

What wheels are you using in the photo? I have similar on the ‘52 basket case Special I’m working on but they won’t work without spacers because the front hubs are too big to fit into the center of the wheel. I would like to use the style and think it’s a good look for the car. 

 I'm not sure what year or model these wheels are from as we got the car with them on. They do have spacers and the locating studs on the front hubs were cut off when a previous owner installed them as they won't allow this style of wheel to fit.

 Likely next week they will come off and the stock ones will come back on.

Keith

[Rusty Heaps]

Want to part with the spacers? I may be persuaded to relieve you of them, and I wouldn’t charge you a dime!

[Buicknutty]

On 8/25/2022 at 7:06 AM, Rusty Heaps said:

Want to part with the spacers? I may be persuaded to relieve you of them, and I wouldn’t charge you a dime!

If you are willing to pay for the postage, sure. We now have the proper wheels on it, as will see in the post. FYI, we are in Canada.

Keith

[Buicknutty]

 We have been chugging along with the '55, lots of little things to do. Like find where in H... the license plate lights have been put!!! Finally we found them, in the wrong box of stuff, not with all the '55 stuff like they were supposed be.

 There is a theory that someone put them in the wrong place, but I'm leaning towards the theory that aliens are moving things around when I'm not looking.

 Then of course they wouldn't work, so that was a whole lot of time getting continuity to the ground. There is a small brass strap which connects the housing but there was enough corrosion to stop getting a connection. So some careful cleaning and soldering and Viola we have ground and now they work!

 

 Another little issue was the left side headlight door was a bit loose, it turned out that the small bit the screw goes into was broken. So a bit of fabrication then careful welding at very low power and it is solid again. You'll notice a small line of rust but it is otherwise solid and we will deal with that later when we paint the grey part of the car back to it's proper colour.

 

 Then it was time to get the other things sorted. New tires mounted on the proper rims with wheel covers, though they are '56 covers, but at least they look better. My son actually leans towards having hubcaps, "poverty caps" as some call them, but we don't have any, and haven't seen any for sale, plus the rims don't have the clips. So wheel covers it is!

 

 At this point the interior is back together and we are waiting to get it into the shop to have the safety done.

Keith

 

[Buicknutty]

So we are a tad disappointed as my mechanic friend who understands these cars and was going to do the official inspection had an airbag explode in his face, so he is recuperating. Fortunately he is not seriously injured.

 Perhaps I sound a bit off there, as I am truly sad about my good friend's accident, though he is well on the road to recovery.

 

 The plan was to paint the whole car back to it's Windsor Grey against Dover white so I wasn't going to paint the primed parts of the quarters, but that might take some time so I think I'll try to get a colour match to the shade which is on it and blow it in so it becomes a half decent, or maybe decent 20 footer.

 Hopefully we can get the safety done soon and put a few shakedown miles on it, then do the quarters. That's the plan for now.

 

 We thank everyone for their interest and support. I hope the next pictures I post will be when it has Ontario license plates on it!

 Keith

Edited September 2, 2022 by Buicknutty (see edit history)

[Buicknutty]

 Another question, maybe a silly one, but it's about outside mirrors. We recently got a Buick one from a gent here on the forum and it came with the original template but the position it indicates it should be in is at the very top leading edge of the door. The problem being is the view the from the drivers position is largely blocked by the A pillar and door frame.

Then when looking at pictures on 'net, the  I've seen them mounted anywhere from the middle of the front fenders to near the middle of the door.

 Any suggestions? Does one just mount them where ever?

 Thanks.

 Keith

 

 PS., the mechanic is still recovering from his mishap the other day, so we are still waiting for the safety to be done.

 

[JohnD1956]

Put them where they work Keith. No one will know the difference and no point having them obstructed. 

[avgwarhawk]

19 hours ago, Buicknutty said:

 Another question, maybe a silly one, but it's about outside mirrors. We recently got a Buick one from a gent here on the forum and it came with the original template but the position it indicates it should be in is at the very top leading edge of the door. The problem being is the view the from the drivers position is largely blocked by the A pillar and door frame.

Then when looking at pictures on 'net, the  I've seen them mounted anywhere from the middle of the front fenders to near the middle of the door.

 Any suggestions? Does one just mount them where ever?

 Thanks.

 Keith

 

 PS., the mechanic is still recovering from his mishap the other day, so we are still waiting for the safety to be done.

 

Mine are mounted just behind the wing window. Installed by the previous owner.  When I open the window the edge just gets by. The mirrors are not Buick. Kind of stinks because the Buick mirrors have a small base and the installed mirrors have a large base. Drilled holes are for these mirror mounts. I can't change to Buick mirrors. Anyway, if I tilt my head the driver side mirror is usable. The passenger side mirror is basically useless.  Mounting the mirrors on the leading edge of the door still proves to be not the best either.  I guess the driving school instructions recommends looking over your shoulder before maneuvering is best practice.  Many cars where purchased without mirrors.  I have seen some mounted in the fenders.  It looks ghastly in my opinion.  

[avgwarhawk]

Here is the passenger side mirror on my Special. 

 

 

 

 

[old-tank]

On small series hardtops and convertibles the factory driver side mirror is sorta useful; the passenger side is...decoration.  Looking at Chris' picture of a sedan, both factory mirrors would be useless.  Find a mirror you like and mount where it is useful.

[Buicknutty]

 Thanks everyone for their input.

What I have done on my other cars with small right hand mirrors is to add a small stick on wide one which gives a a wide field of view.